the trenches, a high, Germano-Pompeian country house, topped by a roof
rich in angles, absurd windows, and unexpected gables. There are huge,
square, French-roofed houses in New England villages built by local
richessîmes of Grant's time, and still called by neighbors "the Jinks
place" or the "Levi Oates place"; Wisteria Villa had something of the
same social relation to the commune of Maidières. Grotesque and ugly, it
was not to be despised; it had character in its way.

Our social center was the dining-room of the villa. Exclusive of the
kitchen range, it boasted the only stove in the house, a queerly shaped
"Salamandre," a kind of Franklin stove with mica doors. The walls were
papered an ugly chocolate brown with a good deal of red in it, and the
borders, doors, and fireplace frame were stained a color trembling
between mission green and oak brown. The room was rectangular and too
high for its width. There were pictures. On each side of the fireplace,
profiles toward the chimney, hung concave plaques of Dutch girls. To the
left of the door was a yellowed etching of the tower of the château of
Heidelberg, and to the right a very small oil painting, in an ornate
gilt frame three inches deep, of a beach by moonlight. About two or
three hundred books, bound in boards and red leather, stood behind the
cracked glass of a bookcase in the corner; they were very "jeune fille,"
and only the romances of Georges Ohnet appeared to have been read. The
thousand cupboards of the house were full of dusty knickknacks, old
umbrellas, hats, account-books, and huge boxes holding the débris of
sets of checkers, dominoes, and ivory chessmen. An enlarged photograph
of the family hung on the walls of a bedroom; it had been taken at
somebody's marriage, and showed the group standing on the front steps,
the same steps that were later to be blown to pieces by a shell. One saw
the bride, the groom, and about twenty relatives, including a boy in
short trousers, a wide, white collar, and an old-fashioned, fluffy bow